The American Missionary — Volume 41, No. 4, April, 1887

A vital primary source from spring 1887, this monthly magazine published by the American Missionary Association offers an unfiltered window into post-Reconstruction America. The issue opens with an urgent editorial: contributions have plummeted, threatening the Association's ability to sustain its network of schools, churches, and charitable work across the nation. The pages that follow document a nation in turbulent transition - articles grappling with a recent Supreme Court decision enabling discrimination against Chinese residents, dispatches on the precarious progress of Black communities in the South, and reflections on the legacy of abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher. For historians and anyone seeking to understand how Americans thought about race, justice, and belonging in the 1880s, this periodical captures the era's progressive voices at a moment when the struggle for equality was entering a darker chapter.